Backlinks Strongest Factor For Positive Search Rankings

Content shared from Facebook and the amount of backlinks appear to influence organic search engine results most, but Google +1s have the strongest impact on rankings on Google sites in the U.S. and
U.K., notes a Searchmetrics study being released Thursday.

Keywords in the title or the header, word counts, title character length and an excessive amount of ads have negative effects. The
study will show that similar factors have positive and negative influences on search engine optimization in both regions, although to different degrees.

In fact, there are some strong
differences between the U.K. and U.S., specifically in the order of importance.

For instance, the number of words in the text has a large negative correlation in the U.S., yet less than half
the correlation in the U.K. The report suggests that more highly ranked sites in the U.S. have less text compared with their counterparts in the U.K.

The study analyzes Google results for
10,000 popular keywords and 300,000 Web sites in the U.S. and the U.K. between February and March to identify correlations between content and search ranking. The results should help marketers
better understand the close correlation between search and social content, as well as how Google algorithms Penguin and Panda influence change.

The data focuses on Google search engine page
results because of the market share size, but Searchmetrics plans to add Bing and Yahoo in a later study. Matthias Bachor, director of marketing at Searchmetrics, said the ranking factors across
engines are similar, as social continues to grow in importance.

"We think that social factors will gain even more importance in the future," Bachor said. "It will probably never replace
other factors, like backlinks, but social remains a strong indicator for good content and will have an even stronger impact in the way we search in the future."

Bachor said it will lead to
more personal results, depending on friends' networks, content that users like, and content being shared in their circles.

Regardless of the rising influence of social media, backlinks remain
one of the most critical factors in achieving good search rankings. The number of backlinks remains the factor most strongly tied to positive rankings in both the U.S. and U.K.

The proportion
of no follow links correlates more strongly with rankings than the proportion of links containing keywords in the U.S., but marketers will find nearly no difference between the two in the U.K.

Even the proportion of links containing a stop word can have an effect. This strong correlation for factors that seem to suggest a more natural link structure illustrates a trend suspected by many
SEOs -- that dull, perfectly keyword-optimized links are often uneffective.

Ads are an obstacle. Too many or excessively clumsy advertisements have a negative effect on rankings. The negative
correlation was slightly stronger in the U.K. at -0.05, compared with the U.S. at -0.04.

"We have seen that the existence of ads on the page correlates to rankings," Bachor said.

"This
correlation value for AdSense integrations is much higher than for other ad integrations," Bachor said. "This means Google can easily identify the use of AdSense, but it also means the use of AdSense
remains higher than other integrations."

When asked whether influences on desktop are the same as mobile sites for all three engines, Bachor said they are similar in some ways such as
regionally, but different in others.

Thanks for this informative post. Do-follow backlinks are a really great way to increase your traffic. Another gold mine of traffic is posting on sites that list their (Top Commentors) in the sidebar. This is your opportunity to not only generate a backlink but also to get front page exposure. Some site typically take around 5-7 posts to make it to the top commentor list.
Yours in Success...